Coincidences
by Kyas Nonsense
Summary: Gibbs runs into a young woman during a blizzard and assists her, only to have his interest piqued in her hidden past. Whatever is in her past makes her push him away. The death of a Naval Officer will bring the past into the light and force the young woman to face the darkness within.
1. Snowblind

Snow fell all around her, the cold wind biting into her already numbed flesh as she stumbled along the sidewalk, trying to avoid the icy water puddles from the day's melting warmth. Sometimes she managed to miss the water, but more often than not, she stepped in it. As a result, she could barely feel her feet. If not for the knowledge that she had to keep moving to stay alive, she would have stopped and sank to the middle of the sidewalk, lying down and going to sleep right there.

No one moved in the city. The snow had been falling for the past three hours, heavily and she had been dumb enough to go out into it. Three hours ago, the buses had been running and she'd gotten to the grocery store easily. But, apparently, the city had seen fit to stop the buses from running and declare an emergency. When the electricity had gone out in the store, she'd taken to the sidewalk, determined she could get home on foot in less than thirty minutes. That had been nearly an hour ago and her boots had officially given out, allowing the slushy snow to seep in and numb her feet.

It had been three months since she had arrived here. Washington D.C. had not turned out to be what she expected. When her father had talked about the city with such high regard and love, she had thought it was the perfect place to start over after their deaths. But, her expectations had been far too high. Her apartment was a dump, she couldn't afford a car, and no one seemed to notice her beyond a quick glance. While she didn't want a pile of people snooping in her personal business, a few friends would be nice.

Stopping at a corner, she looked up at the dark street lights before starting to cross, nearly falling as her foot sank deeper into the snow than she had expected. Snow entered the top of her boot, managing to wake her numb foot. The pain was intense and nearly made her stop moving forward, only sheer will

and terror pushed her through the pain. If not for her powerful sense of self-preservation, she would have stopped walking nearly thirty minutes ago, allowing herself to collapse onto the sidewalk and go to sleep.

"Stop thinking about it Bekah," she ordered herself hoarsely, her throat wanting to fight the words.

Ten minutes later and she was standing in front of a dark house, only a few blocks away from the dumpy little apartment she rented for nearly two weeks' worth of pay. It was amazing, how nice the area actually was, she half expected to be evicted any day now, the neighbors demanding the dumpy two story house-turned- apartments be torn down.

Leaning against the front end of a pickup truck, she moaned and closed her eyes, rubbing them with her gloved hand. Pain lanced through her body, especially her fingers and toes. There was little doubt in her mind that she had frostbite. The simple fact that she was still alive was amazing in and of itself. Though, if she stayed where she was, she didn't know how long that would last.

"Keep moving or you're never going to make… just three more blocks," pushing away from the truck, she continued to chant the number of blocks to go under her breath. She didn't even make it past the row of shrubbery that lined the front yard of the house she was in front of. Her knees buckled and she collapsed into the snow in a heap, struggling to force herself into a sitting position. Her jeans were soaked and already starting to freeze in the cold air. Her teeth began to chatter and her body shook from the cold.

Trying to pull herself into a standing position, she failed miserably and collapsed once more; exhausted. When the spots started to form before her eyes, she knew she was done and that she would be seeing her parents far sooner than she had expected. The darkness took her as she recalled the visage of her mother.

Warmth. That was the first thing she noticed as she woke. The next was the sound of a fire crackling, the source of a lot of the heat she was feeling. Moving her arm slightly, she winced and became aware that she was definitely not dead. Opening her eyes slowly, she was looking toward a high, white ceiling. Firelight flickered across the ceiling, drawing her attention as she laid still, listening to the sounds around her; a clock ticking, water running, and sleet hitting a window pane nearby. Moving slightly, groaning as her muscles protested the movement, she realized she was laying on someone's could, a blanket thrown over her body. A coffee table sat before the couch, her coat thrown over it before the fire. Where the rest of her clothes were, she was not sure.

Looking up as someone entered the room, she sat up fast. The movement aggravated the headache that had been hiding at the back of her skull and she wound up leaning forward, her eyes closed. Whoever had entered the room moved closer and sat down on the edge of the coffee table, setting something down on the coffee table, near her knee.

"You know, most people don't try going for a walk in a blizzard," the man spoke calmly with little affliction to his voice, aside from a hint of humor. She rolled her eyes at the comment and bit her tongue. It wouldn't be a good idea to make the guy who'd saved her life mad.

"Come on, sit up and drink this," he set a hand on her shoulder and pushed her up slightly, handing her the hot cup he had set on the coffee table.

Taking it gratefully, she wrapped her fingers around it and took a sip, looking at him for the first time. Her eyes were still gritty and sore, but he was close enough for her to see. He was older with gray hair, cut short in a military style, though it was still shaggy compared to the 'jarheads' she had seen on TV. He was wearing an old gray t-shirt with the letters NIS on the front. His blue eyes were watching her closely as she drank the hot liquid; she had the sense that he was inside of her head, dredging through her darkest secrets. It was a little disconcerting.

"What?" she snapped as she lowered the cup and glared at him.

A small lop-sided grin appeared on his face as he stood up and walked toward the other room once again. She watched him, curious about what was beyond the living room she was in, but not feeling strong enough to stand and follow, so instead, she continued to sip at whatever was in the cup.

Not for the first time, she considered the fact that she was trusting a total and complete stranger. There was no way for her to know this man from Adam, and yet she was trusting him with her life. He came back as she was considering her options, tossing an old t-shirt down on the coffee table, along with a pair of shorts before leaving again. This time, she heard a door creak open and his shoes tapping down a set of stairs.

Setting her cup aside, she slipped the t-shirt and shorts on, trying not to think about the fact that he had taken her clothes off, down to her long underwear – she hadn't been completely unprepared. Dressed now, she got to her feet shakily and walked slowly into the other room, using the walls for support. Entering the next room, a decent sized kitchen, she stopped and looked around. Everything was neat and clean, though a bit barren on anything decorative. At one end of the kitchen was a table, near the wall with four chairs, at the other end was an open doorway, beyond which was a set of wooden stairs. Light filtered up from below, creating a rectangle of yellow on the floor. Sounds came through the opening along with the light. Whatever the sounds were, they were soft, almost a swishing, as though he were wiping something rough against something smooth.

After a moment's consideration, she stepped forward and passed through the door, stopping at the top of the stairs and looking down into the dimly lit basement. Apparently the electricity was out and he was using old lanterns as a light source, there was one near the top of the stairs, casting its yellow glow down the stairway and into the space below.

"A boat?" she couldn't help herself, the shock of seeing a boat in the basement of a house in the city loosened her tongue.

The man looked up from his place on the opposite side of the boat, his movements stopping as he looked at her.

"How are you going to get it out?" she asked, wanting to slap herself in the forehead. She must be feverish, she was never this curious about anything or anyone.

With a soft laugh, the man tossed the sanding block he was holding aside and turned away, lifting a jar with an amber liquid inside.

"Thanks."

She must have startled him by saying it because he turned around and looked at her, his brows were knotted and his lips were drawn in a tight line as he regarded her silently. Looking away from those eyes, she moved away from the railing and walked back into the kitchen, her legs feeling slightly stronger, but still not strong enough. As she walked into the kitchen, she noticed the wet bags from her trip to the grocery store. She'd forgotten she had managed to keep ahold of them at all. Footsteps on the stairs behind her drew her attention away from the bags and back toward the basement door.

"What were you doing out there?" he asked as he stepped around her into the kitchen.

Instead of answering, she moved back to the couch and collapsed with a sigh, pulling her legs up beside herself. Something about this man made her very wary to respond to his questions, she had a feeling it would be impossible to tell him anything but the truth. And her truths were dangerous to her and those around her.

"Who are you?" she asked as he stepped into the living room and sat down in a chair across from.

"Jethro Gibbs," he answered easily, nodding to her, "You?"

"Rebekah Conrad."

"Get some sleep," Gibbs ordered, leaning back in his chair and watching her for a moment before looking at the fire in the fireplace, "We'll talk tomorrow, after you've rested. You can't go anywhere tonight anyway."

As if to prove his point, the sleet began hitting the window harder.

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	2. Snow Daze

Snow plows trundled past on the street outside, shoving mountains of snow on top of people's cars and into the ends of their driveways. A few kids ran around outside, screaming and shouting as they threw snowballs at one another and built snow forts in their yards. A few brave souls were outside their houses, shoveling snow from the sidewalks, their heads poking out above the large mounds left behind by the snow plows. As soon as the temperature rose slightly, Rebekah would leave, she wouldn't warn Gibbs (she couldn't bring herself to call anyone 'Jethro' – it sounded like something you'd name your dog) and simply leave. Hopefully they'd never cross paths again.

Turning around from the window, she made her way around the couch and sat down, finding it hard to breathe. Her feet still hurt, as did her hands, and her legs were still weak. But, it was only three blocks, she could reach that even with the pain and Gibbs would be none the wiser as to where she had gone.

"Don't even think about it," Gibbs' voice preceded him as he stepped through the hallway from the kitchen, setting down a cup of coffee on the coffee table before he held up a small piece of lamenated plastic. Her driver's license. The jerk had gone through her pockets.

"HEY! Give that back, who do you think you are going through my stuff?!" Rebekah growled and jumped to her feet, biting back the outrage of her body, as she reached for the card. She bumped the table and the coffee spilt across it, leaving dark smears on the wooden surface and brown stains on her only winter coat.

"According to my forensic scientist this is fake," Gibbs stated calmly, maintaining the distance between her and the card, twitching it in his fingers, "She says that Indiana has a number of anti-fraud devices on their licenses, two of which your license does not have." He was waiting, staring at her as though he were digging through her soul.

Rebekah's response was to simply snarl, snap the license out of his hand and grab her coat at the same time, and walk toward the door. He made no move to stop her, instead waiting where he sat on the arm of the chair. Opening the door, she saw the tracks that lead from the front of his truck where he had left some time in the night. Apparently that had been when he'd gone to visit his friend. Without thinking about it, Rebekah stepped out into the icy air and threw her coat on, ignoring the strong smell of the coffee and the burning in her stocking feet. If she lost her toes to frostbite, it would be worth getting away from the man inside the house.

She didn't even make it to the end of the driveway before an old man stopped her with a hand on her arm. He looked at her closely before turning her and leading her back into the house. As much as she wanted to fight him off and take off running, she couldn't do it. He was old enough to be her grandfather and her parents had held one rule above all others, 'Respect your elders'. Instead of fighting and running like she knew she should because Gibbs was smart, an investigator, and he would find the truth if he kept digging, she allowed this man to lead her back inside to her doom.

"Ducky," Gibbs greeted from inside the doorway, stepping back to allow them passage.

"Jethro," the older man, Ducky, greeted back, "I am shocked that you allowed this young lady to go out in such condition."

"She wanted to, so I let her," Gibbs responded easily enough. Rebekah noticed he was holding a new cup of coffee and that the one from earlier was cleaned up. The only trace of what she had spilt was now on her.

"You can't keep me here," Rebekah snapped, glowering at them both.

"Who said I wanted to?" Gibbs asked, walking ahead of them and pulling the coffee table out slightly.

"I told him to keep you here so I could examine you before he released you onto the world," Ducky stated solemnly, his accent strong as he spoke.

Anger was starting to rise into her throat and she knew it wouldn't be long before she forgot and ignored the rules of her parents, like it always did. If it happened, she was done for, but she wasn't about to let some dirty old man touch her.

"Don't touch me you old bastard…" she was shoving his hands away and pushing back from him, but didn't get to finish what she was going to say.

"HEY! Dr. Mallard is here to make sure you didn't manage to kill yourself. Now sit down and shut up," Gibbs ordered, his voice lowering as he spoke.

Shock stopped Rebekah and she sat up straight again, but speaking as she did so, "You didn't say he was a doctor!"

"My dear, you do remind me of someone I once knew, back in Edinburgh, now that was fiery young lady," Ducky began talking and Rebekah soon forgot to be angry as she listened to him prattle on about his past. Gibbs sat and listened for a short while before shaking his head and leaving.

"She's fine, Jethro, nothing a warm bath and good hot meal wouldn't cure," Ducky was saying as Rebekah pulled her coat back on and began to button it.

"Thanks Duck," Gibbs nodded, walking with him to the door.

"Jethro, she's anemic. I doubt that young lady has seen decent food in months and Abby tells me that you had her check an ID. Did anything turn up?" Ducky was speaking low enough that he doubted she could hear him.

"Nothing yet Duck. All I know is that she's carrying a fake ID from Indiana and she's chomping at the bit to get the hell out of Dodge," Gibbs answered, glancing over at the young woman, watching as she tugged at the first of her boots.

"Take her home Jethro, make sure you know where she's going. There's more to her story than just a young lady who foolishly believed she could walk home in the dark during a blizzard," Ducky stated as he flipped the collar of his coat and opened the door.

"Thanks again Duck," Gibbs said as he held the door and watched the older man walk down the snowy sidewalk toward his parked car.

Ducky waved over his shoulder as he rounded the nose of his car. Snow began to fall from the sky, drifting down to add to the mounds that the plows had left behind.

"Thanks again for all the help," Rebekah's tone was sharp as she thanked him. It was clear she was far from grateful. She was hiding something and she didn't want him digging around to find out what it was.

"I'll take you home," Gibbs stated, turning and walking toward the kitchen. Her groceries sat on the counter in new bags. She hadn't followed him and he had a feeling he'd be driving down the road and stopping beside her as she walked. It wouldn't be the first time he'd done something like this and it most likely wouldn't be the last.

By the time he got back into the front room, she was gone, leaving only the coffee stain on his coffee table and floor. Next time he'd make sure to put the coffee somewhere else before revealing that he knew someone's ID was fake, not that he normally did that in his living room.

Gibbs packed up the truck and started down the road, sliding every once in a while on the ice beneath the fine layer of snow left behind by the plows. The snow that was hitting his windshield was coming down harder and he wondered how dark this woman's secrets were that she felt the need to escape the warmth of a house so badly.

When he spotted her, she was nearly to the corner of his block, her back bent against the wind and her face lowered to protect it against the pelting rain. Her boots slid on the ice with nearly every step she took and she was too focused on walking to notice him coming up behind her. That was fine. If she saw him, she might do something stupid, like try to take off running.

At the corner, she stopped and looked up. A deep sigh escaped her as he pulled up and reached across the cab, popping the passenger side door open.

"Get in," he'd meant it to sound friendly, but it sounded more like an order.

For a moment she looked around, considering running perhaps, but her good sense must have won as she clambered into the cab and took a seat as far away from him as she could, pulling the heavy door closed with a bang.

"Some people might get the wrong impression, call the cops," Rebekah stated with little emotion.

He looked over at her with a small grin, considering if he should respond or let it go at that.

"But, would that do any good… I wonder, since you're a cop," Rebekah stated, keeping her gaze to the outside.

"I'm not a cop, I'm an NCIS agent," Gibbs answered, focusing on the road, "You're safe, I won't let anyone hurt you. It's been a while, since someone has told you that, hasn't it?"

She stiffened and stayed silent, watching the houses as they went by.

"Where are we going?" Gibbs asked with slight humor.

"Third house on the left after the next street," Rebekah's answer didn't surprise him. The house was not much more than a two story hovel that someone had turned into four apartments. The only saving grace to the place was that the entrances to all the apartments were inside.

He pulled up in front of the house, wincing internally at the poor condition of the place. Shingles were peeling on the roof, along the front, the porch looked as though it was ready to fall down, and the siding was in desperate need of either paint or replacement. He couldn't help but wonder if the interior was in as bad of shape as the exterior.

"I'm not going to thank you this time," Rebekah spat as she slid from the bench seat, gathering a bag of groceries with her as she went.

Gibbs smirked and grabbed the other bag, walking toward the building silently. Rebekah moved ahead of him to unlock the first of two doors. The 'lobby' area of the house-turned-apartments was dark and musty smelling. A row of metal mailboxes was set up against one wall, each with an apartment number etched into its front. Rebekah didn't even bother stopping. Somehow, Gibbs knew she rarely, if ever, got mail. She lead him up a set of steep stairs, her hand gripped the railing so tightly that he knew her knuckles were white beneath the old, worn-out gloves. There was little doubt she'd fallen down these stairs at least once, if not more. And he could see how that was possible.

At the top of the stairs was a short hallway. Two doors were set into the ends of the hall. Rebekah turned right, opening the door that had a gold 3 set into the center of the peeling, painted, wood door. There was a short pause before she breathed in deeply, held the breath, and opened the door to reveal her tiny apartment.

Like the rest of the house it had seen far better days. It was a tiny studio apartment with a small kitchen off to the side of the living area. A murphy's bed was lowered on the far side of the living area with a pile of clothes strewn across it's rumpled surface. There was no other furniture, save for an ancient table with an old color TV sitting on its top. One day, the TV was going to tumble from the top of that table, but it was staying there for now.

Carrying the groceries to the counter, Gibbs looked at the rest of the place. The paint on the walls was peeling and fading, cracks had formed and grown over the years, and the carpet was threadbare and stained. An old stove sat against a wall with a window set in it, overlooking a trash-strewn lot behind the building. Beside the stove stood the refrigerator, making a racket that deemed it unsafe for the storage of food, but he opened it and found that it was actually cool inside and completely empty.

"Go ahead and say it," Rebekah invited in a sharp tone, throwing her coat over the edge of the bed along with all the other clothes that lay there.

"What am I supposed to say, Rebekah?" Gibbs asked without looking at her. He put her groceries away, noticing she didn't buy anything for in the cabinets. He had a sneaking suspicion he knew why.

"My apartment's a dump, I eat nothing but junk, and I can barely pay the bus fare to get to work," Rebekah stated, sitting on the edge of the bed dejectedly, "I should just go back to Indiana and forget about D.C."

Gibbs shrugged as he shut the refrigerator door, "Why'd you come to D.C. in the first place?"

For the first time, she looked at him with real surprise. It wasn't marred by fear or suspicion.

"My father used to talk about the city all the time, said we'd move here one day," Rebekah answered with a shrug, "When he died…. I decided to move here for him."

"And do you like it here? In D.C., I mean," Gibbs asked, leaning against the counter that split the living room off from the kitchen, waiting.

"I guess… it's not the friendliest of places… why am I telling you this? I just met you. Look, you've been nice to me and all, but I really don't need some old guy looking after me. So you can just take your pity and go somewhere else. Thanks for the lift and all the help, but just forget about me, okay? I'm no one important," Rebekah stated with less venom than she wanted, he was sure.

Nodding, he stood up straight and headed for the door.

"All right, but if you need anything," Gibbs stopped and took out a business card, one with his cell phone number on it, and set it on a small shelf that was painted the same color as the wall, "Give me a call."

Without looking back, he left, making his way down the stairs and out into the snowy day. The lights in the 'lobby' flickered as he walked through. He'd have to come back down later to check on her, make sure she had electricity. Regardless of her protests, he had no intentions of forgetting about her or leaving her to the city. There was something she was hiding and he'd find out what it was, he already knew more than she had wanted him to know and the more she told him, the easier it would be to find out who she really was.

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	3. Slippery Slope

As a week, then a month went by without a sign of Gibbs, beyond that evening when her electricity had gone out and he had brought her an old kerosene heater, Rebekah began to believe that he had actually listened to her and was staying out of her life. Going about life, she started to allow the memory to fade and forget about the man with a boat in his basement.

The days moved by at their normal rate of speed. She moved about her routine at the normal pace, cursing each time she missed the bus, laughing whenever she talked to a man who flirted while still pushing them away, crying at night when she felt so alone she thought she would die of the loneliness, and getting up the next day to do it all over again. Was this really the life she had signed on for?

Struggling with her groceries as she stepped off the bus she tripped and fell to her knees in the filthy snow that was piled along the edge of the sidewalk. Gasping at the pain in her right knee, she scouted away from the bus's door and began gathering her spilt groceries, tears standing in her eyes as she did so.

No one stopped to help, in fact, the people who were getting off at the same stop simply stepped around her, some of them kicking her meager groceries as they went. There was even a little bit of laughter from a few of them. She ignored them and gathered as much as she could before standing up and limping away, not looking back as she went. Not for the first time, the thought of a warm fire and the smell of coffee entered her mind. In all honesty, he had been the nicest person she'd met since moving to the area. But there was no point in remembering him, she'd chased him away, just like she always did with anyone who tried to be nice.

Turning the corner that would take her to her street, she stopped, looking in the opposite direction. Nothing moved down that way. It was midday and the vast majority of residents were working, resting, or at their midday meal. With a faint sigh, Rebekah turned and began her slow way home. The laundry mat had been slow, so Mrs. Chang had allowed her to go home early, knowing she shopped today.

Mrs. Chang also continually hinted at a social life that Rebekah did not have, but she didn't tell the older lady otherwise either. It was better that way because she didn't try to fix Rebekah up, the way she did the other girls who worked for her.

Before she knew it, she was standing before her apartment building. Looking up at the weathered and worn exterior, she felt a deep sense of misgiving and longing. This was far from the two-story ranch house she had grown up in. It hadn't been large, but it had been well cared for and loved by those who lived within. There had been a lot of love inside of that house. All of that had ended though, a grand total of five months ago. And there was nothing she could do to change that.

"Need some help?" the voice startled her, causing her to whirl on her heels and nearly drop her bags. Behind her, with two white cups in his hands, stood the same man she had been trying to forget for the past month. Though the memory had faded, it was still there in the recesses of her mind.

"What are you doing here?" she snapped, turning away and heading for the front door of her building.

There was no way she could hide the limp, her knee felt as though it was already swelling to twice its normal size. He didn't say anything, he didn't need to. There was no way she was going to make it up those steep stairs without help.

"Here, let me have that," Gibbs handed her a cup of coffee as he took the bag.

She could feel his gaze on her back as she gripped the hand rail tightly, using it to pull herself up the stairs. For a moment, she teetered on the edge of the uppermost stair, fear gripping her heart until she had pulled herself onto the top landing.

Once inside the apartment, Gibbs did as he had the first time he had been in her place – he put away the groceries. She watched him for a moment before walking toward the bathroom, her knee throbbing as she went, "You know, it's creepy, the way you show up out of nowhere."

A small laugh was all she received for an answer before the door closed and she was secured inside the small space beyond. Sitting on the toilet so she could get to her knee without bending it too much, she listened to the water as it dripped from the facet. Her knee was as bad as she thought it was, the swelling had increased and there was a deep scrape across the front. Groaning, she changed into shorts and grabbed a roll of gauze before returning to the only other room in the apartment.

"Sit down," Gibbs ordered, gesturing to the small chair and table duo she had added to her apartment.

"Who the hell made you boss?" Rebekah demanded, stopping short of the kitchen counter and glaring at him. He hadn't moved from beside the refrigerator, the crumpled bag now empty of her groceries.

Silence, that was only broken by the pitiful noise of her refrigerator and the dripping of the bathroom facet, abounded and buried them both in a heaviness that was not holy unexpected. Neither was going to give in and Rebekah had the feeling that he could stand there and stare her down all day, just as she could have done, if her knee had not felt as though it were about to blow open from the swelling.

"Fine, but it has nothing to do with, I just want to get off of this knee," Rebekah muttered as she limped to her chair and fell onto it, wincing as it creaked under her sudden weight.

Without a word, Gibbs approached her with an ice pack and towel. Gripping the seat of the chair tightly, Rebekah watched as he worked with her knee. There was something inside of her that refused to show this man just how weak and vulnerable she felt whenever he was around.

"Do your parents know where you are?" Gibbs's question surprised her and made her forget why she was clinging to the chair. No one had ever asked her about her parents.

"They're dead," Rebekah answered evenly after getting over the initial shock. She had told him that her father was gone, she had thought she had said as much about her mother, but perhaps her memory was faulty. After all, hadn't she been trying to forget him?

"No one else worried about you?" Gibbs continued speaking as he wrapped her knee tightly.

"No," Rebekah snapped, glowering at him. She didn't like being questioned about her past.

"I would have thought there would be someone who would miss a sixteen year old girl," Gibbs stated as he set the ice pack on her knee. When she didn't move to place her hand over it to hold it there, he gripped her wrist and set her left hand on the ice pack before standing up and wiping his hands off on a towel.

"How… Why… Why do you care?" Rebekah wasn't sure she wanted to know the 'how' or the 'why'. But she couldn't help but ask, even as the irritation and rage began to claw at her mind.

"Because you're alone and I can," Gibbs stated evenly as he leaned against the wall nearest the table, "You're hiding from something, but I can't find out what… yet."

"It's none of your damn business," Rebekah snarled, slamming the ice pack down onto the table's surface as she stood, "Get out."

Gibbs did not move, he did not flinch, and he did not speak. He simply stood there and watched her, waiting.

"I said get OUT!" Rebekah's voice was shaking and she realized her eyes were starting to sting. Why had she been dumb enough to allow this man into her life in the first place? Because he was older than her and she'd been taught to respect him? Or was there something else.

She didn't know and, at the moment, didn't care. He was getting too close. As soon as she got him out, she'd be at the phone book, finding a new dive to live it. She'd leave this area of D.C. and find a new place where he couldn't find her again. No matter how much he learned about what had happened in Indianapolis.

He still didn't move. Instead of reacting to her anger, he just stood there and waited, looking at her steadily. There was something distinctively unnerving in that gaze. It was like he knew what she had planned and he had no intentions of allowing her to go through with them. She also felt the irritation and anger ebbing, being replaced by a sense of pointlessness and exhaustion. The exhaustion, she put up to being tired from her ordeal at the bus stop.

"Look, I don't need a watchdog. I'm fine, just get out of my life and let me live it on my own terms, okay?" Rebekah was resorting to something she hated, begging.

"You are far from fine," Gibbs stated, suddenly turning on his heel and opening the door, speaking as he entered the hallway, "Don't even consider moving, I can find you, no matter where you go."

These words brought the rage up once more and she moved to the door, wishing fervently that she could stomp her way over there. Poking her head out the open doorway, she shouted down the stairs, ignoring the partially open door at the other end of the hall, "You know, that's REALLY creepy coming from a guy who is old enough to be my GRANDFATHER!"

Slamming the door closed, she spun around and leaned against it heavily, slamming her fists against the aging wood. Pieces of paint fluttered to the floor on the other side. A heady determination overcame her and she moved away from the door, ignoring the pain in her knee. The phone book lay open on the counter, turned to a page with menus. Flipping through it, she found the apartment complexes and started calling.

Three hours and a multitude of minutes wasted on her pre-paid cell phone later, Rebekah collapsed onto her bed and sighed. Her neighbor's newspaper lay beside her, opened to the classifieds and the phone book sat on the floor where it had been thrown after the fifth apartment complex told her that the cheapest apartment was a thousand dollars a month. The places she could afford were in dangerous areas and the ones that weren't cost over a month's salary. There was nothing she could do but stay in her current place.

It seemed she would have to find another way of getting rid of Jethro Gibbs.

Maybe it was time she did a little snooping of her own. Since Gibbs was so good at it, surely she wouldn't have that hard of a time doing the same thing.

Packing up her purse and going to the door, she walked out, securing the door behind her. The sky was growing dark and snow was beginning to fall again. Wrapping her coat tighter about her body, she started along the sidewalk toward the bus stop around the corner. Very few people were out and that was how she preferred it. Her walk was hampered by the sore knee and the wind was making it throb even worse, but she wasn't going to give up. The university had a twenty-four hour library where the public could get online for a dollar a day. That was where she was headed. As long as she had her ID and the money, they wouldn't care how long she spent on their computers.

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	4. Ice Melt

Slumping onto the bed that took up the vast majority of her apartment, Rebekah recalled all that she had learned in the last seven hours. Of all of the information she had consumed, the one thing that stuck out the most was that Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs was as tenacious as a bulldog when it came to solving mysteries. Every article she had found, the majority of them published online only, had told of how the man had solved a number of murders and other crimes, along with his team. They also pointed out that, although he had won a number of commendations for these feats of justice, he was rarely spoken of. In fact, Rebekah had been unable to find a single article that included a statement from the man himself.

It all boiled down to one thing: she was doomed. Her freedom was at an end and the anonymity she had gained by moving so far from home was about to be destroyed. There was little doubt in her mind that the man would find out the truth and that she would be shipped back to Indiana without any preliminary questioning.

Allowing herself to fall back onto the bed, her hands going to her face to rub at her tired eyes, Rebekah considered her options. Fake IDs were not easy to come by, even when you knew how to get one. And one that can pass the casual glance was even harder. She'd been lucky, finding that idiot from her old school. Even though he'd missed two essential elements of the ID, he'd managed to make it convincing enough that no one had noticed it until now. Something told her she would not be able to get that lucky this time. Another issue was finding a landlord who was dull enough to rent an apartment to a minor without realizing it. Contrary to popular belief, slumlords were notoriously picky about the people they rented to. And the last issue was lack of monetary resources.

Of all the problems facing when it came down to it, the money was the biggest problem. All of her meager belongings could fit inside of a suitcase. But to have the ready cash to buy a bus ticket and rent a place to live would take her, at least, three months. In that time, Gibbs could easily have discovered every dark secret in her past. It wasn't like she'd been trying to hide herself all that hard.

Four hours later, a knock at the door woke her. Getting to her feet, Rebekah cautiously approached the door, as though it would open suddenly and monster would grab her. There was the sense of being a small child again, facing the boogeyman for the first time after deciding you were too old to run to your parents every time you were scared. Facing one's fears was not always easy.

The knock came again, this time followed by a loud thump directly on the other side of the door. Footsteps told her that, whoever had been was leaving. When she heard the front door bang shut, Rebekah opened the door and stared out into the dark hallway. There was no sign of anyone having been present, until she looked down and spotted the package.

Kneeling to pick up the package, Rebekah's gaze took in the empty hallway and the top of the flight of stairs. Nothing moved, not even a rat. Her thoughts began to settle down as her heart rate followed suit. No one was standing there, waiting to grab her; it had only been the mailman.

Standing back up was a little harder than she had anticipated, her knee did not want to function at all and she realized she had forgotten all about the wound. Forcing her joint to respond, she got to her feet with the package securely held beneath her arm and turned from the open door, pushing it shut with her hip. Reaching the counter, she set the package down and dug through the drawers until she found a pair of scissors.

There was no return address on the package and she had a small sense of fear as she slid the tip of the scissors beneath the tape and began to slice through it. Once the tape was split, she took a deep breath and released it slowly before peeling back the flaps to reveal what was inside.

When the light hit the enclosed item, a small squeak escaped her throat and she backed away, tears standing in her eyes as she began to shake her head. Before the panic had completely set in, Rebekah's gaze went back to the unlocked door. The chain from the door guard was dangling beside the door and the deadbolt was turned to the unlocked position. Ignoring the screaming pain in her knee, she rushed over to the door and bolted it, slipped the chain into place, and turned the lock in the handle. Once this was finished, she leaned against the door and slid to the floor, the tears streaming down her face.

Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs was no longer her biggest worry.

It never failed to amaze him that DiNozzo thought it was a good idea to mess with a former assassin. Standing at the top of the stairs, looking down into the bullpen, Gibbs waited for the eventual result of his senior field agent's actions. A hand fell to the top of the handrail just as Ziva walked through the elevator doors and DiNozzo ran back to his own desk. Looking over at the Director, he smirked at the shout that floated up to where they stood.

"Leon," Gibbs greeted, ignoring the argument that was going on below them.

"Gibbs," Vance handed him a manila envelope, his eyes focused on the antics of the two agents in the bullpen. Gibbs didn't have to look to know that about twenty harassment rules were being broken.

With a nod, after a cursory glance in the folder, Gibbs stood and made his way down into the bullpen, entering just as Ziva was finishing with DiNozzo. Judging by the look on her face, there would be other repercussions for the man.

"Got a dead sailor, gear up," Gibbs ordered as he walked through the bullpen, intentionally disregarding the looks that passed between DiNozzo and Ziva. McGee was the first to join him in the elevator while the other two continued their spat on the way there. He was tempted to leave them behind, but decided against it. If he did, there might not be an NCIS to come back to.

Snow had started to fall again, aiding in the haste that was required for the crime scene examination and evidence collection. Ducky joined them, with Palmer close behind, as they pulled up to the crime scene.

"I do not care what you thought you saw, Tony, it was of none of your concern," Ziva snapped even as the doors opened and everyone got out.

"Ducky, what've we got?" Gibbs asked, glancing back to make sure that everyone was doing their job.

"A Lieutenant Roy Evans, the officer there," Ducky pointed to a police officer standing near the crime scene tape, talking to Ziva, "found the victim's ID nearly three yards south of here on a routine patrol."

"Time of death, Duck?" Gibbs walked toward the body, looking down at the bloody mass that used to be the man's hands, "What happened to his hands?"

"Jethro, slow down, would you?" Ducky laughed slightly before kneeling down beside the body and looking over his notes, "Tentatively, I would say this young man died within the last twenty-four hours. Give or take a few, considering the weather lately."

"Tentatively? That doesn't sound like you, Ducky," Gibbs stated before looking over the immediate area, "Did our friendly officer find anything else while he trampled through the crime scene?"

"Not that I know of," Ducky responded, "As to his hands, his fingers were removed postmortem. We have not found hide nor hair of them."

"All right, get him back to the Navy Yard," Gibbs stepped away to speak with DiNozzo, stopping when McGee shouted from the other side of the taped off area.

"Boss, I got something here," McGee stood where he was, waiting for them to join him.

Once everyone was gathered around, he began to speak again, "I found this while I was digging through the snow." The tip of his boot was situated at the edge of an older photograph. The faces were obscured by snow, but the uniform was unmistakable. Waiting for DiNozzo to snap a photo, Gibbs lifted the photo by the edge with a gloved hand and stared long and hard at the faces. One in particular popped out at him and a sense of dread filled him.

"Take this to Abby, identify each person in this photo, NOW," Gibbs ordered, shoving the picture into an evidence bag and shoving it at McGee before turning and moving back across the crime scene.

"Boss?" McGee called turning away as Gibbs spun and looked at him, "On it boss."

Gibbs watched him run through the snow, up the slight incline, and enter the car before turning back toward the crime scene and Dr. Mallard. Ducky and Palmer had the Lieutenant Commander's body up on the gurney and were preparing to wheel it back through the freshly fallen snow to the crime scene vehicle.

"Jethro, are you riding with us?" Ducky asked as Gibbs approached.

Nodding, Gibbs walked past and opened the rear doors of the vehicle, waiting on the two of them. He was beginning to get agitated at how slowly the gurney was moving through the snow, but there was little that could be done to change that as the snow was beginning to come down harder. He simply hoped that his long-held belief in there being no such thing as coincidences turned out to be untrue.

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	5. Broken Ice

A few hours had passed before Rebekah moved from in front of the door. Now, sitting in the kitchen area, she stared directly at the door with the old chair sitting against it, the front legs in the air as the high back was tightly wedged beneath the door knob.

Leaning against the cracked, flaking cabinet doors, Rebekah clutched the sharpest knife she owned tight enough to turn her knuckles white. There had been no sign of anyone standing out in the hall since her flight to lock the door. Yet she couldn't shake the feeling that she was being watched somehow. Even if there was no one there, she knew he was nearby. That there would be no escaping his sight.

As the time wore on, Rebekah began to settle down and her mind cleared enough for her to think. Her eyes moved from the chair and door to the little shelf beside the door. The corner of a card was floating over the edge of the shelf. All of this time, she had never touched the business card that Gibbs had left behind. Not even when she had decided it was time to research him.

With a visible effort, Rebekah got to her feet and, still clutching the knife tightly, limped to the shelf. Her knee throbbed painfully as she went, reminding her that she had no hope of running away if the monster did come back. Reaching the shelf, she darted her hand out and retrieved the card, bringing to back to her chest before backing away from the door, the knife held out before her like a short sword.

When her back touched the counter once more, she sank back down to the floor and flipped the card over, looking at the letters embossed on the front: NCIS. There was an emblem as well, a seal that denoted the name of the agency. Beneath it, centered on the card, was Gibbs' name and office number. On the back, scribbled in a quick hand, was a cell phone number.

Reaching into her pocket, Rebekah groaned and closed her eyes. Her cell phone was lying on the bed, left where she had dropped it upon returning home from the university library. That meant she would have to get up and retrieve it, if she wanted to call Gibbs. As he was the only person she could think of to call, she didn't have any choice but to move through the apartment once more.

As she began her slow journey to the bed, a knock came to the door. Rebekah froze, her gaze darting between the bed and the small amount of safety she had hiding in the kitchen. In the time that it took her to look between the two areas, the knocks began to fall harder and the door shook back and forth as the doorknob was pulled on harshly. The chair did not budge, though it did groan a few times.

Suddenly all went silent again.

Standing up straight, Rebekah pulled her emotions into check and reached the bed as silently as possible, lifting the cell phone from the mattress. Looking at the face of the phone she nearly moaned out loud. The battery bar was empty and flashing, indicating that she had no battery power left. There was no way her cheap little phone would make the call to Gibbs now. When the power was this low, it wouldn't even turn on from sleep mode for more than a few seconds.

A heavy thud on the door made her jump and she nearly dropped her phone as the person on the other side of the door hit the wood. Flakes of paint drifted to the threadbare carpet on her side of the door and she knew there were more on the other side. Moving slowly, putting her back against the wall, Rebekah scouted back toward the kitchen, fighting the urge to break down into uncontrollable sobs. If she didn't get out of the apartment soon, there would be no controlling anything, but the door was the only way out that wouldn't result in multiple broken bones.

"Beeeckyyy," the voice that came through the door was straight from her worse nightmares, "I know you're in there Becky, come on out and play with me, won't you?"

She refused to respond to him, pulling herself from the paralysis that was beginning to grip her muscles, making movement seem impossible, she continued moving toward the kitchen cabinets and the window behind the sink. In her mind, a few broken bones and, possibly, a fractured skull, didn't seem so bad after all.

"Come out come out come out wherever you are," the voice floated through the door once more, the sound of his fingers running across the wood sending shivers of cold fear up and down her spine as she rounded the end of the bar.

As she went, she banged her right knee into the side of the bar, biting her lower lip to keep from screaming out in pain. Using the bar and counter tops to keep herself upright, she dragged herself along their length until she could push over to the sink, her knee refusing to work any longer. It seemed it could handle no more abuse from her today.

The door began to shake back and forth again as he started pulling on the knob and banging upon it's aged surface once more. He was becoming impatient, agitated… dangerous. A sense of urgency began to bolt through her entire being as she pushed herself onto the edge of the sink and began working with the window. Over the years, the window had been painted over and repainted over, resulting in it being painted shut. This, combined with its placement over the sink and counter, made it nearly impossible to work free. By the time she had managed to work it even half an inch up, the chair in front of the door was beginning to give way.

Fear pushed her and a strength that she knew she would never have again came to her aid, shoving the window up, howling like an injured animal. Cold winter air blasted into her face as snow began to fall onto the sink and counter. Panting, she released the window and drew in deep breaths of the frigid air, her lungs convulsing with the sudden influx of cold and causing her to cough harshly. When the coughing fit passed, she lowered herself back to the floor and listened once more for sounds indicating that he had gotten further in tearing the door down. There was nothing to indicate that he was nor had been there.

Cautiously, her knife still held tightly in her right hand, the phone in her left, Rebekah approached the door and, leaning over the chair, looked through the peephole. There was no sign of him or anyone else for that matter. A heavy sigh escaped her and she leaned against the door, the hand holding the knife pressed against her madly racing heart.

Peace lasted only those few moments, only to be shattered by the sound something heavy crashing through her, newly opened, window. Spinning on her heel, she watched as flames leapt up the side of her counter, reaching for the ceiling. Turning once more, she began fighting with the chair, screaming at it as it refused to budge from where she had placed it earlier. Another bottle shattered as it struck the counter beside the box, dislodging the grisly gift he had sent her. She saw only a portion of the dead canary before the flames swallowed the box.

Gripping the shelf with both hands, Rebekah brought her left leg down onto the remains of the chair, screaming as it began to break apart. She could feel the heat of the fire as it began to burn hotter, reaching the carpet in record time. One more kick and the chair was destroyed. Her hands shook as she tried to unchain the door and unlock the deadbolt, the knife and phone making it nearly impossible to do either. Throwing both items aside, she redoubled her efforts and managed to get the deadbolt unlocked, yanking hard on the door, only to have it stop a few inches. The chain was still in place.

Panic was beginning to grip her as the flames began to spread further into the apartment, catching stray paper, clothes, and furniture as it progressed. With bleeding, numb fingers, she finally managed to release the chain and threw herself free of the apartment, landing headlong on the dirty carpet right outside of her door. Turning onto her back, she stared, wide-eyed, as the flames licked the kitchen area, groping the sides of the cabinets. Then, as though a bolt of clarity had struck her like lightening, she remembered the range was gas. Getting to her feet, she ran down the hall, screaming for her neighbors to get out.

She was standing at the top of the stairs as her neighbor, whom shared the second story with her, came crashing through his door, a small dog clasped tightly to his chest. He shoved her out of the way as he ran headlong down the stairs to safety. Pulling herself up to her feet and fighting to make her right leg work, Rebekah struggled down the stairs.

When the flames reached the gas lines to the range, she was only halfway down the stairs. The explosion knocked her forward, forcing her grip loose from the banister, causing her fall head-first down the steep stairs. Blackness overtook her as she felt strong hands gripping her under the arms and dragging her from the lobby-area of the old house.

"What have you got for me?" Gibbs demanded as he entered the bullpen, looking between the three members of his team.

McGee stood up quickly, clicking the remote for the plasma screen. An enlarged version of the photograph filled the screen. Two couples stood on either side of a young girl; the only differences in the couples were the looks of the women. The two men were identical twins, something that had not missed his notice earlier.

"Boss, the man and woman on the right are Lieutenant Commander Roy Evans and his wife, Susan. The couple on the left are Gregory Evans and his wife, Stella. The girl in the middle is the daughter of Gregory and Stella Evans," McGee stated, turning to listen to Ziva as she approached and took the remote.

The screen changed to the image of a police report from the Indiana State Police. Photos of both Gregory and Stella Evans adorned the reports.

"Gregory and Stella Evans, along with their daughter, Rebecca Evans, were killed in a car crash six months ago. The local authorities believed the crash to be a hit and run. There was evidence of their vehicle being pushed from the road by another, larger vehicle. Both parents were killed on impact. The rear passenger side window was broken out and there was evidence that Rebecca was thrown from the car… however, her remains were never found," Ziva stated, tapping a button and pulling up a newer image of the daughter.

Dark waves of auburn hair accentuated an angular face with gently sloping hazel eyes. Rebecca's age was listed as fifteen at the time of her supposed death, but her appearance was that of a college-aged woman.

"She's not dead. What about the Lieutenant Commander?" Gibbs asked, disregarding the looks he was receiving from his team.

"Not dead?" DiNozzo was the first to get over his dumb-struck silence as he shook his head, "Uh, boss, there is no evidence that she survived that crash."

"She wasn't in the crash, DiNozzo," Gibbs stated firmly, "Now, tell me about the Lieutenant Commander."

"Uh… Lieutenant Commander Roy Evans… aged thirty-five. Rose through the ranks fast and had a stellar career. He was married to his high school sweetheart, Susan Conrad of Baltimore, Maryland. According to the people he worked with, he had no known enemies and was considered a nice guy," DiNozzo said, still staring at Gibbs, waiting for an explanation.

"All right, go have a chat with his wife, see if she can't spread a little light on this," Gibbs ordered, looking over at them all when no one moved, "NOW, DiNozzo. McGee, go with him. Ziva, with me."

"Gibbs, what is going on?" Ziva asked as she followed him to the elevator, throwing her coat over her shoulders as she walked.

"Remember my rule about coincidences?" Gibbs asked calmly.

"That they don't exist?" Ziva half responded, half asked as they entered the elevator.

With a nod, Gibbs punched the button for the parking garage and remained silent for the remainder of the trip there. Once they were in the car and driving down the slick city roads, he felt Ziva's gaze on him once again. He knew he would have to explain soon.

"How do you know?" Ziva demanded, gripping her seatbelt slightly as they swerved and slid to avoid a slow-moving vehicle.

"Know what?" Gibbs asked, keeping his eyes on the road.

"That the girl is alive," Ziva stated, waiting.

"I've met her. She's going by Rebekah Conrad now. She spells her first name differently, but it's her," Gibbs shook his head as he thought about the girl, wondering just how she had disappeared so easily and why there would be evidence that she had been inside of the car her parents died in.

"You've met her? When?!" Ziva sounded as surprised as he had ever heard her.

"A month ago, found her half-frozen on the sidewalk in front of my house," Gibbs explained, pulling around the corner that would take them to the old house that Rebekah lived in. As they turned the corner completely, they were stopped by a group of fire trucks, ambulances, and patrol vehicles. Stopping the car, Gibbs jumped out and ran up to the nearest LEO, showing his badge and jogging through the slush to reach the building.

Ashes floated from the sky, turning the white snow on the sidewalk and street black. Water steamed as it hit the still hot remenants of the building. There was a group of people gathered together on the right hand side of the police tape. Gibbs approached them, recognizing one as Rebekah's neighbor from the same floor. The man looked haggard and angry, his tiny dog clutched so tightly Gibbs wondered how the poor animal was breathing.

"She's at the hospital," an elderly woman spoke before Gibbs could even reach the area where they all stood. He looked over at her before approaching her instead of the man.

"You've been visitin' her, from time to time, she ain't nice to ya, but you keep comin' anyway," the woman said with a smile on her wrinkled face. She was missing more than a few teeth, but her old brown eyes still sparkled in the winter sunlight.

Gibbs nodded before asking her which hospital. After the woman told him, he turned and walked past Ziva, returning to the car. Ziva followed him after a moment of confusion that swept across her face as quickly as a bullet would fly from a gun. Once Ziva was in the car, Gibbs spun the wheel, backed out of the street, and sped away, back the way they had come.

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	6. Black Ice

After waking from the drug-induced rest, Rebekah found herself lying in a hospital room, swathed in antiseptic white paint with moss green accents. Machines beeped quietly beside her, a myriad number of wires spouting forth from her nightgown-clad form and attaching to the machines around her. A pin-like apparatus was stuck to the tip of her middle finger, counting her heartbeats. An IV stuck out of her right wrist, the long tube making its way to the saline mixture that hung from a silver pole beside her bed. All of it was familiar, though only from scenes on television.

Lifting her head, she allowed it fall back down upon the uncomfortable pillow as a lightness overtook her and she was forced to close her eyes, breathing deeply until it passed. When she reopened her eyes, she was greeted by the grim face of an exhausted nurse, her blue eyes focused on the chart in her hand.

"How are you feeling?" the woman's question brought a choked laugh from Rebekah's dry throat as she considered the absurdity of it.

Pain shot through her as soon as the laugh had emerged and she squeezed her eyes shut tightly before licking her lips and asking the question she was afraid to have answered, "What happened?"

"According to the paramedics who brought you in, you were found at the bottom of a stairwell in a burning building. Another resident of the building pulled you to safety," the nurse explained, making a mark on the chart, "You have three bruised ribs, a broken clavicle, a dislocated elbow, broken wrist, and a fractured knee."

"Lovely," Rebekah managed, opening her eyes once, "Can I have some water?"

"Of course," the nurse walked out then, hanging the chart back up at the foot of the bed. Rebekah watched her go with a quiet sigh.

Looking around the room, Rebekah considered how many ways her 'friend' could get rid of her. Between the bag that was attached to the IV in her arm and the very pillow beneath her head, there was little doubt that he could do what he had set out to do that day, which was take her life. Why else would he throw Molotov cocktails through her window? Surely no sane human being did something so stupid.

"What sane human being moves eight hours away from her home three days after her parents have died, with a fake ID, and sets up a new life where she avoids all forms of companionship with other people?" Rebekah whispered into the empty room, listening to the sounds of people passing the room out in the hallway. As she looked around the room again, she spotted the television, mounted high on the wall, directly across from her bed. There was no sign of the remote nearby and she resolved herself to ask the nurse for it when she returned. What else could she do to keep her mind off of the half-formed nightmares that continued to pulse in the back of her mind?

Entering the hospital, Gibbs motioned for Ziva to follow him, approaching the nurse's desk, his hand in his coat pocket as he walked. Before even speaking to the heavyset, tired looking woman behind the desk, he flipped his identification open and showed it to her.

"NCIS," Gibbs stated, making sure she was able to read the ID before closing it and placing it back into his pocket.

"A young woman came in earlier, from the scene of a fire," Ziva stated, waiting for the woman to respond.

"I didn't see no badge from you, sweetheart," the nurse snapped before turning back to Gibbs, her expression changing from dour and annoyed to friendly and flirtatious, "You on the other hand, cutie, can ask me all the questions you want."

With a slight smile, Gibbs responded with the same question as Ziva had, "I'm looking for a young woman named Rebekah Conrad. She would have come in a short while ago, possibly with burns."

"Try broken bones, honey," the nurse answered, "Room 204. She's sedated though."

"That's all right," Gibbs nodded as he turned away and began walking toward the elevators, stopping at the sight of a young man near Rebekah's age. Long, shaggy blond hair hung out from beneath the hood of his sweatshirt, his face hidden within the shadowed recesses of the hood. His feet were shod in heavy work boots and his jeans had seen far better days. Yet there was something in the way he held himself apart from the people in the hospital's waiting area, as though he were afraid someone might touch him by accident.

"Ziva," Gibbs didn't have to say another word as the former Mossad officer noticed the boy as well.

"On it Gibbs," Ziva walked away, heading for the young man at an angle. Gibbs did not stick around to see how things went. He wanted to get to Rebekah's room before someone beat him there.

Once on the second floor, Gibbs moved to another nurse's station, this one manned by a black man, tall and slender in build. His scrubs were a light green color and his badge said his name was Jamal White. Stepping up to the station, Gibbs again showed his badge.

"Agent Jethro Gibbs of NCIS, I'm looking for room 204," Gibbs stated, waiting impatiently for the man to acknowledge his presence.

"What's a Navy cop want with that kid?" Nurse White asked, barely glancing at the badge.

Gibbs had to smirk a little at his reference, "How'd you know it was Navy?"

"Seaman Jamal White," Nurse White stated, "Learned to be a nurse in the Navy."

"Miss Conrad is a person of interest in a current case," Gibbs explained, looking down the hallway while Nurse White tapped away at his keyboard.

"You'll have to get in line. There's a regular cop down there now, an Officer Keats…" Nurse White stopped mid-sentence as Gibbs took off running, "SIR!"

"Call security and tell them to make sure no one leaves this floor, Seaman," Gibbs shouted back, pulling his sidearm as he reached the room that housed Rebekah.

Standing outside the door, he listened. The television was on, making it hard to discern the sounds that came from inside the room. Leaning forward he looked around the edge of the door and swept the area he could see from his vantage point. The curtain was drawn around the bed nearest the window. The silhouette of a person standing over the hospital bed behind the curtain was clear. Whoever it was held something in their hands and they were speaking to the occupant of the bed. As the person moved closer with the object, Gibbs stepped inside and announced his presence.

The moment the letters NCIS were out of his mouth, the person moved faster, reaching toward the bed. Even as Rebekah screamed, Gibbs pulled the trigger, watching as it passed through the curtain and into the person behind it. Running to the bed and sweeping the curtain aside, Gibbs skirted the end of the bed and looked down on the form of a blond woman in nurse's scrubs. Looking up and over, he locked eyes with Rebekah before moving to her side and pulling her against his chest, trying to calm her down.

Minutes later, Ziva, followed by five security guards and Nurse White, entered the room, all of them appearing shocked. Ziva was the first to recover. She moved to the prone form on the floor, checking for a pulse – looking up at him and shaking her head to indicate that the woman was dead.

"Gibbs, what happened?" Ziva asked as she stood.

"Later Ziva, right now I want to get agents posted at the door, around the clock. No one comes or goes without identification and authorization," Gibbs ordered, watching as she left to carry out his order. Nurse White approached then, glancing at the body on the floor momentarily before beginning a check of all of the equipment and attachments.

"I don't get it, where's the cop?" Nurse White muttered, looking back at Gibbs before redoubling his efforts to check everything.

"What cop?" Rebekah asked in an unsteady voice as she moved away from Gibbs enough to look over at Nurse White.

"The one who came down here to talk to you about what happened at your apartment," Nurse White stated as he released the saline bag and stepped back, lifting the chart from the foot of the bed where the dead woman had set it.

"Gibbs… there wasn't any cop, only her," Rebekah stated flatly, swallowing hard as her gaze went to the still form on the floor.

"Gibbs, everything is arranged. Ducky's on his way to pick up the body. McGee said they need to talk to you as soon as possible as well," Ziva reported, stopping short of the bed.

With a nod, Gibbs released Rebekah, stopping when she pulled on his arm with her right hand. The other arm was in a hard cast and she winced with the movement, but she maintained a tight grip. The look of fear on her face was one he had not been prepared for.

"I'll be back, in the meantime, Ziva will stay with you," Gibbs reassured her, waiting until she decided it was safe enough to let him go. As he walked toward Ziva he gripped her arm and pulled her after him, stopping just outside the door.

"I want you to stay here, no one gets past you, understood?" Gibbs asked in a low voice.

"You think whoever killed the Lieutenant Commander is coming after her, don't you Gibbs?" Ziva asked, indicating Rebekah with a tilt of her head.

"Coincidences don't happen, Ziva," Gibbs stated firmly as he turned and walked away from the room, heading for the elevators that would take him back to the lower floor.

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	7. Spring Thaw

Days passed with little forward momentum. Rebekah lay in bed, sedated half the time, with two NCIS agents standing guard out in the hall each day and night. Without anyone to talk to, she began to think about what had happened since the fire. Gibbs had not been back, but in all honesty, she had not expected him to be back. It seemed like, every time a man promised something, he never came through on that promise.

Only one nurse per shift was allowed into her room, each of them – according to the NCIS agents – had gone through rigorous background checks. Still, she found herself jumpy around them. No one had come to tell her who the nurse that had attacked her was, nor why she had done so. She was starting to feel helpless and useless, two feelings that did not sit well with her.

Special Agent Ziva David, a woman with an accent that denoted the Middle East and who held herself with a great amount of dignity, entered the room. Agent David's gaze swept the entirety of the room as she walked through it. When she approached the bed, she gave Rebekah a small smile and took a seat in a hard plastic chair near to the right side. They sat that way for a moment in silence. This was only the third time Rebekah had seen the woman. She was the only consistency in her life at the moment, beyond the doctor. Agent David was the first to break the silence.

"How are you doing?" Agent David asked the simple question that Rebekah should have been accustomed to hearing on a daily basis. All of the nurses asked her that question, so did the doctor who had been assigned to her case. Even the NCIS agents who came to replace their fellows had asked her this question. But something about this time made Rebekah feel as though her world was collapsing around her ears.

She did the only thing she could do – she laughed.

"Rebekah?" Agent David sounded confused as she sat there, watching Rebekah's spiral into insanity. At least, that was what it felt like.

"I'm wonderful Agent David, how could I not be?" Rebekah managed through a few short laughs, wiping her face with her right hand as she looked over at the dark-haired woman, "I've lost my family, been chased to another state, had my apartment turned to ashes, and now have someone else, whom you refuse to tell me about, after me!"

"I never refused to tell you anything. We have been unable to discover who paid that woman to kill you," Agent David stated, shaking her head as she leaned back in the plastic chair and regarded Rebekah silently, "You have not been very… forthcoming with us either, Miss Evans."

The name stopped Rebekah's sharp comeback as she swung her head around to stare hard at the other woman. No one had called her by her proper last name in over six months. It was frightening to think that she had gotten so accustomed to hearing Conrad instead that she was shocked by the use of her given name.

"What of it?" Rebekah snapped, glowering at the agent.

"What does that mean? 'What of it?' I have never quite understood the point of asking such an inane and pointless question," Agent David stated before returning to her original line of thought, "What it is, Miss Evans, is an attempt to obstruct our investigation."

"What investigation? You're Navy cops, aren't you? Nurse White explained that one to me. Why do you care about me? I've got nothing to do with the Navy. Why haven't you punted my case over to the local authorities?" Rebekah demanded, growing angrier the more she talked to the agent. If she had allowed the nurses to give her the full dose of morphine they wanted to, she wouldn't be lucid enough to hear this woman accuse her of obstructing their case.

"The reason the investigation has to do with you is simple," Gibbs' voice startled Rebekah badly enough that it registered on the heart monitor. Turning her head too quickly, she winced and clenched her teeth at the pain that ran up her neck, but did not turn away from the man.

"And that is?" Rebekah snapped, barely recognizing her own voice.

"We found a dead Naval officer in a park a few days ago. His name was Roy Evans," Gibbs stated matter-of-factly as he took a seat in the orange, plastic chair on the left hand side of the bed, his gaze never leaving her.

"Uncle Roy? But… how?" Rebekah was caught off guard. The last she had heard of her uncle, he'd been deployed on board the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan.

"He was shot multiple times by a small caliber handgun," Agent David supplied, earning herself a glare from Gibbs.

"But… who would want to kill him? He never hurt anyone," Rebekah asked as she leaned back against her pillow, staring at the place where the wall met the ceiling on the opposite side of the room.

"That's what we're trying to find out," Agent David stated. Rebekah watched her stand and put on her coat as she walked toward the door.

"Ziva, I want you to go to the Fire Marshall, retrieve his report on the fire," Gibbs ordered, his gaze still focused on Rebekah.

"And you, Gibbs? What are you going to do?" Agent David asked as she pulled her long hair out of the back of her coat.

"I'm going to find the connection," Gibbs informed her as he stood and walked to the right side of the bed, taking the seat Agent David had just vacated.

Once Agent David had left the room proper, Gibbs leaned forward and set a hand on Rebekah's hand, smiling slightly as he waited in silence for something. Rebekah had no intentions of crying over her uncle's death any more than she had cried over the deaths of her parents. There wasn't time for tears.

"I'm being stalked… do you think he could have killed Uncle Roy too?" Rebekah asked. With a realization that she was clenching the rough hospital blanket with her right hand, she forced her fingers to release it.

"I don't know yet. Who's stalking you?" Gibbs asked.

Looking to the side, away from Gibbs's face, Rebekah swallowed. She didn't want to talk about this, didn't want to invite the bad spirits back in (as her grandmother used to say). But, she had opened the door to the question with full knowledge that he would pursue it.

"Matthew Keys," Rebekah stated, taking a deep breath before continuing, "I met him when I was thirteen years old… he was fifteen at the time. My parents hated him, especially my dad. But, as with most teenaged girls, I didn't want to listen to him. I thought I was in love. I mean, a fifteen year old who wanted to date me?! I was a kid compared to him. And that was the problem; I just couldn't see it back then."

"What happened?" Gibbs asked.

"My dad threw him out one night. There was a big fight after that and I stomped off to my room. Later that night, Matt came back and threw a few rocks at my window. Dad caught him before I could get to the window. That was the beginning of it," Rebekah took a deep breath again and swallowed, "I started getting 'gifts' on the front porch every other day. There was no note or return address. They were in shoe boxes, wrapped in brown paper. Dad always got home before me, so he took them inside and opened them. There were little trinkets in them; a stuffed cat, a teddy bear, a necklace with a dove on it. Never anything big or expensive, stuff like a kid would send to another kid. At first we thought I had a secret admirer from the neighborhood. It never passed any of our minds that it might have been Matt.

Back then, I had a pet bird. A canary I had named Miner. Bad name, I know, but I'd heard the stories of how miners used to take canaries into mines with them to test the air and I was enthralled with it. The very idea that a tiny little bird could save your life, even though they had to give up theirs… Now, I can see how morbid that was.

Anyway, Miner was my only pet. I wasn't allowed to have a dog or a cat, not even fish. Mom was afraid of fish, refused to swim in anything but a pool…" Rebekah laughed slightly at the memory, stopping for a moment to think about the things she had not thought about since it had all started to fall apart.

"It was Matt then, leaving the gifts?" Gibbs prompted her when the silence has dragged on longer than it should have.

"Uh, yeah, a neighbor caught him and told Dad. Dad went off the deep end then and took all the stuff that I had gotten away, burning it in the backyard. That was probably the worst decision he could make. The next day, when I got home from school, I found another box on the porch. It must have been placed there after Dad got home because he never would have left it there. I picked it up and snuck it up to my room to open it. I was still infatuated, a foolish little kid thinking that her parents were trying to keep her from the best thing in her life.

I didn't even look at Miner's cage when I got to my room; I was so focused on the gift. I opened the box carefully and set the wrapping aside. Pulling the lid off, I looked inside and stopped. I've never been much of a screamer, so no sound came out of my mouth. Inside the box, lying on a small scrap of material, his yellow feathers all mussed and his head lying at a strange angle was Minor. My poor little canary had given me the warning and now I got it. Where my parents failed, my bird succeeded," Rebekah finished for the moment, wiping at her eyes.

"How did he get into the house?" Gibbs asked, pushing her forward.

"Not sure. All my Dad said was that he had managed to find a way in, steal the bird, and disappear. After finding Miner the way I did, I started getting other threatening gifts and notes. It was about this time that Dad started talking about moving here, to D.C. I think he wanted to get us away from Indy to a place where he had family," Rebekah explained.

"Could Matt have killed your family?"

"I don't know. By that time, he was seventeen and I was fifteen. My parents had gone out for dinner and were driving home along a stretch of country road that was covered in snow. I had stayed home alone, telling them that I had to face the night by myself. I hadn't heard from Matt for about six months and was starting to think he'd stopped, that he'd given up. Then the accident happened and the cops said it was a hit and run. Three days later, I snuck out of my neighbor's house and ran. I took my father's savings, got a fake ID, and here I am," Rebekah stated, "How did you know my age?"

It was something that she had been curious about since the day he had stated her age to her. There were no reports on her, as far as she knew, beyond those of the police stating that she had died in the car with her family – she had hidden away in the neighbor's shed until things calmed down and she was able to slip away. No one from her old life knew that she was still alive, as far as she knew.

With a chuckle, Gibbs released her hand after giving it a small squeeze, and leaned back in his chair, "I spoke with a co-worker of yours, a Lydia Smith."

"Lydia," Rebekah groaned, running a hand across her forehead, "That twit. I told her that I was twenty-one and she never did believe me."

"How much do you know about your parents' accident?" Gibbs spoke after a few moments.

"Only what I saw on TV. It was a hit and run on an icy back road. Their car swerved off of the road into a stand of trees, going about fifty and flipped," Rebekah stated, looking at him curiously.

"There were bloody prints exiting the vehicle. The local police believed they belonged to you, but were unable to recover a body. Is there a possibility that they belonged to Matt?" Gibbs's suggestion sent spikes of fear through her body as she considered the possibility.

"Oh god, Gibbs… could he have known this entire time?" Rebekah moaned as she fought the fear was starting to get harder and the pain was starting to increase in her arm and leg.

"I don't know, but I'm going to find him and find out. Don't worry Rebekah, he can't hurt you anymore," Gibbs said softly as he leaned forward and hit the button that released the morphine into the tube connected to her arm. He stood over her as she drifted from consciousness. Once she was asleep, he walked around the bed and exited the room, stopping only long enough to tell the guards to keep a look out for a young man named Matthew Keys. He would send a photo of the young man over to them as soon as he retrieved it.

As soon as Gibbs stepped from the elevator, he was accosted by his team. Even Abby was standing there, waiting on him. Only Ziva was missing, most likely still visiting with the Fire Marshall. Moving through the throng of bodies, Gibbs walked to his desk and removed his coat, throwing it over the back of his chair before standing and waiting for someone to start speaking.

"The blood you found on the Lieutenant Commander's lapel was from an unknown male, but he's not as unknown as you might think," Abby started off, handing him a computer printout of a DNA profile, "He and the Lieutenant Commander are father and son."

"Were there any reports of the Lieutenant Commander having a son?" Gibbs looked to one of the others, but was answered by Abby.

"No, according to the Lieutenant Commander's file, he was married with no children," Abby answered, smiling at him as she spun on her heel, "What's more, the DNA did not come back as a match to Susan Evans."

"Meaning he has an illegitimate son out there who hates him, is it possible that he went up to Indiana and killed his uncle and aunt too?" McGee asked as he handed over the file from the Indiana State Police, "According to the report, the couple was shoved from the road by another, larger vehicle. Ducky's going over the autopsy reports now, he's got his hands full now that he's got Susan Evans's remains down there too."

This information surprised Gibbs, "I thought I told you two to go speak with her over three days ago."

"You did boss and we did, but we went back last night to speak with her again and found her body. She had been shot multiple times with a small caliber handgun, just like the Lieutenant Commander. Her fingers were gone as well," McGee explained.

"It was the same gun Gibbs," Abby added.

"So, we have an enraged killer out there who is taking the lives of the family he feels betrayed him?" Gibbs asked, looking at each in turn, "Well?"

"It's possible, boss, I just got off the phone with the Indiana State Police, as well as the local LEOs here and they're both saying the same thing, they don't know. According to the report though, Gregory and Stella Evans were both shot multiple times by a small caliber handgun. They're sending the evidence reports now so that Abby can compare the bullets. It's taking a while, you know, with all the snow and bad weather and… you really don't care," DiNozzo moved on to another subject, "According to Rebecca Evans's neighbors, there was a young man hanging out outside the building for five days leading up to the fire. He was skinny with scraggly blond hair, pale skin, and a day old beard on his face."

Taking a seat at his computer, Gibbs began typing without saying anything to anyone else.

"Gibbs, you want to share with the rest of the class?" Abby asked, coming around to stand behind him.

"We've got two possible killers out there and both are gunning for our only surviving witness," Gibbs stated, hitting a button to send the image he had just brought up to the plasma in the center of the bullpen. The image was from a driver's license. The young man in the photo was an exact match to DiNozzo's description of the man loitering outside of the apartments.

"That is the man I chased from the hospital, the day they admitted Miss Evans," Ziva stated, "Did you find him, Gibbs?"

"No, he's the man who's been stalking our key witness for the past three years," Gibbs responded, looking at the assembled members of his team, "Meet Matthew Keys, our prime suspect."

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	8. Flurries

The motel that was reportedly the hideout of Matthew Keys was an old rundown place on the city's southern side. Known for being a place where those who were running from the law went to escape the city police, it was well guarded by the many people who called it home, which had caused Gibbs and his team to be surprised when someone had reported seeing 'the man on TV' there. The call had come one week after the attempted assassination of Rebekah Conrad. Now, standing outside of the door to room twelve, Gibbs could feel eyes on his team. Everyone on either side of the room was staring at them through the peepholes. It was times like these that he missed the relative safety and security of being a sniper. There was no way to know what these other people would do, should they decide NCIS had no business here.

"Mathew Keys, NCIS! Open the door!" DiNozzo shouted after pounding on the door. The sound of multiple doors clicking shut and locks being thrown was nearly deafening in the silence of the motel.

When there was no answer, Gibbs nodded his head to indicate that Tony should go ahead. Ziva took up DiNozzo's position as the man stepped into a central position before the door. One strong kick later and they were all rushing into the small confines of the room beyond. McGee alone stood outside, keeping a watch on the rear. Once the main room was cleared, Tony and Ziva moved ahead to the bathroom; calling out clear when there was no sign of the subject of their search.

Holstering their weapons, Gibbs and his team began their search through Keys's personal belongings. The room was a mess with clothing strewn about and the stench of cigarette smoke on the air, along with other, less than savory, smells. It seemed Mr. Keys did not believe in basic hygiene. As the team moved through the room, they documented and collected evidence. Ziva started on the side of the room with the queen-sized bed while DiNozzo worked on the other side.

"Gibbs, we didn't miss him by much," Ziva stated, lifting an ashtray that was still smoking from the last cigarette that had been snubbed out in the bottom. A pile of cigarette butts had gathered beside the lamp.

Ziva began collecting the butts for Abby to compare the DNA to that found on the Lieutenant Commander. Stepping away as she began her collection, Gibbs searched the other side of the room, noticing that the man had been staying for some time, possibly months.

"McGee," Gibbs called.

"Yes boss?" McGee stuck his head in the door, his hat shading his eyes.

"Go to the manager, find out how long Mr. Keys has been staying here," Gibbs ordered as he pulled out the dresser drawers one by one, searching them by feeling beneath the contents.

"Yes boss," McGee turned and walked away without another word.

"Gibbs, if he's not here…" DiNozzo started, stopping when Gibbs looked at him, "But you already knew that… never mind."

"Ziva, stay here with DiNozzo and McGee, find anything you can in the room then start talking to the other tenants," Gibbs stood to his full height as he spoke and exited the room, ignoring the inquiring looks from both of them. McGee caught up to him as he walked toward the car.

"Boss, the manager didn't know Keys by that name, whoever gave us the tip knew more than they were supposed to know," McGee stated.

"Did you get any _useful_ information from the manager or did you just stop me so you could chat?" Gibbs snapped, glaring at the younger man.

"No… I mean yes," McGee stopped speaking, shook his head, and began again, "The manager knew him as Gabe Reed. He's been staying at the hotel for the past month and a half. According to his sign in sheet, 'Gabe' showed up on the same night as the blizzard hit D.C."

"If he killed the Lieutenant Commander, why did he wait so long?" Gibbs wondered aloud, leaning against the top of the car, his breath foggy before his face.

"Don't know boss, but I will find out," McGee stated before turning and heading back toward the hotel room.

"McGee, get in, I'll drop you off at headquarters," Gibbs called back, ignoring the look McGee gave the other two. It wasn't much of a surprise they didn't want to be left at the hotel room. It wasn't exactly the picture of good housekeeping.

"Boss, where are you going?" McGee asked as they pulled up in front of the building and he got out.

Gibbs looked at him pointedly, driving away after McGee shut the door. The roads were a congested mess as Gibbs drove through the city toward the hospital, his gut screaming at him to reach the building as soon as possible. It could be nothing, but that was rarely the case.

Skidding to a stop outside of the emergency entrance, he flashed his badge at the security guard who came out to tell him he couldn't park there. Before the man had even finished his complaint, Gibbs was on the stairs, running toward the second floor. Even as he opened the door, he heard the shouts and two gunshots. Pulling his sidearm, he ran past the nurse's station, barely glancing over to see that the male nurse, Jamal, was lying behind it. His chest had risen and fallen as Gibbs looked and he took that as a sign that the man was fine.

One of the NCIS agents on guard duty lay outside the door, blood pooling around a wound in his leg. His side piece was gone and he indicated the room when Gibbs gave him a questioning glance. Stepping into the room, Gibbs was confronted by the sight of two men. One was Mathew Keys, his shaggy hair dangling about his unkempt face, his blue eyes wide with a crazed light from within. The other man was the second NCIS agent that had pulled guard duty. He was standing between Keys and Rebekah, his weapon held out before him in his left hand. There was blood running down his arm, dripping to the floor from the gunshot wound in his shoulder. Both men were panting hard as they regarded one another silently.

Behind them, trapped like a wounded animal, Rebekah watched with wide-eyed fascination. Something in the situation told Gibbs that the girl would never want to return to a hospital again for as long as she lived.

"Mathew Keys, NCIS, put the weapon down and put your hands up," Gibbs ordered as he stepped up to the side of Keys, his weapon held steadily on the side of the man's head.

"No, you don't understand! I'm saving her!" Keys shouted, pointing his weapon's barrel at Rebekah for emphasis before sweeping it back to the agent's chest. A smart move, a second longer of holding the weapon on Rebekah and there would be a second dead body found in this hospital room.

"Sir, he rushed us, screaming something about her life being in danger and that we weren't fit to protect her," the agent explained, his hand beginning to shake as he lost too much blood.

"Stand down Keys," Gibbs snapped, looking over at the agent. The man didn't look capable of firing his weapon, let along aiming it.

"Becky, tell them! I'm not going to hurt you, Becky. I promise," Keys's voice had started to take on a whine as he looked over at the injured girl.

"Matt, I know you won't hurt me, but holding a gun on this man isn't going to convince Gibbs of that," Rebekah started. Her voice started out weak but gained strength when Gibbs nodded to her slightly.

"They'll hurt you," Keys stated firmly.

"No, they won't Matt. Gibbs put them in charge of keeping me safe. You don't have to worry about them," Rebekah responded, licking her lips as Keys's hand began to dip slightly. It came back up quickly however.

"No, they got to you, didn't they? Just like they got to your parents and my parents," Keys said. His eyes were narrowing and his mouth curved down into a sharp frown.

"Who are 'they' keys?" Gibbs asked, stepping back slightly when the man swung his weapon around on him. The agent beside the bed chose that moment to collapse onto the floor.

"You know who," Keys accused, "You're on their payroll, you do their dirty work for them. Take innocents and turn them into cyborgs for the government's use!"

"Matt, Gibbs isn't like that. He saved my life when I could have died," Rebekah said, trying futilely to move. The sling that held her right leg in the air prevented her from moving her lower body much beyond bending her left knee.

"Is that true?" Keys turned his gaze back to Gibbs.

Moving his eyes from the barrel of the gun, Gibbs nodded, "It's true."

"You aren't one of them?" Keys asked, still sounding uncertain of whether or not it was the truth. Gibbs looked to Rebekah before answering.

"She trusts me and, from what I've seen, she doesn't trust anyone," Gibbs stated, indicating Rebekah with a nod of his head. This seemed to get through to Keys as he looked back at Rebekah.

When Keys focused all his attention on Rebekah, Gibbs grabbed the weapon and slipped it from the young man's grip. It took a few moments before Keys discovered the weapon was missing and he brought his hand up to his face, examining it as though the gun had simply vanished into thin air. After securing the gun into the back of his belt, Gibbs slipped his handcuffs free and cuffed the younger man. It was the same caliber as the one used in the murders, Abby would compare the bullets and find out if it was the same weapon as was used.

"Matthew Keys, you're under arrest for the murder of Lieutenant Commander Roy Evans and Susan Evans," Gibbs stated, holding his arm securely, "Doctor, you can come in now."

An older man, nearer Gibbs's own age, stepped inside. The expression on his face was one of weary concern. He had already patched up the leg of the agent outside the door and was moving quickly for the one beside Rebekah's bed. A group of D.C. metropolitan police walked through the door shortly after the doctor and Gibbs handed them Keys with orders to take the man to NCIS headquarters on the Navy Yard. When they had agreed and two left with Keys in custody, Gibbs approached Rebekah and sat down in the chair on the right side of the bed. She looked over at him with still wide eyes and gripped his hand tightly.

"He was protecting me from the agents," Rebekah said, barely sounding like herself, "Why would he protect me from the agents? I thought he wanted me dead."

Gibbs squeezed her hand and looked up for the doctor, but the man was gone and so was the injured agent. Presumably, the doctor had escorted both men to the emergency room. Turning back to Rebekah, he gave her a small, reassuring, smile before releasing her hand and standing up. He could feel her gaze on him as he walked away.

Emerging from the room, he was greeted by an atmosphere of pandemonium. Patients were standing in the hall, craning to see what had gone on in the room. Blood was tracked everywhere by those that had run through the agent's blood on their way down the hall. A nurse came up to him, her brown eyes large and fear-filled as she gazed up at him; the expression gave her round face the feeling of being much younger than she most likely was.

"Miss Conrad will need a new room," Gibbs stated.

The nurse lifted a chart and read through the doctor's notes before looking back up at him, "Miss Conrad is cleared to go home."

With a nod, Gibbs walked back into Rebekah's room, avoiding the blood drops from the NCIS agent that had been shot. Rebekah looked up at him expectantly; her hazel eyes had taken on a greener hue and were focused on his face. She had changed quite a bit from the girl who had thrown him out of her apartment.

"You're cleared to leave the hospital," Gibbs informed her, watching her lips turn up into a rueful smile.

"And where exactly am I supposed to go? My stalker burned down my apartment, remember?" Rebekah reminded him with a short laugh, "And I highly doubt I've still got a job to go back to."

"Mrs. Wong promised you'd still have a position, one that is documented by her laundry mat and you'll be staying with me until you are able to get around on your own, so stop whining and get ready to leave," Gibbs snapped, waving a hand at the nurse from the nurse's station before turning and walking out the door.

As he got to the door and began to close it, Gibbs heard Rebekah urging the nurse to help her out of the sling that her leg was still in. He allowed himself a smile at the way she was acting, almost like a kid for a change, instead of the adult she'd been forced to become. When the door was closed, it effectively blocked off any sound inside of the room and he lifted his cell phone, he'd have to move the protection to his house and that would consist of his team. Hopefully they had caught the bastard, but until he knew for sure, he would not allow anyone near Rebekah unless they were cleared first.

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	9. Negative Degrees

Gibbs walked into the bullpen, looking at the empty desks. A cup of coffee, steam still rising from the liquid's surface, sat on McGee's desk. They had not been gone for very long. He had not meant to spend so long getting Rebekah situated inside of his home, in fact, he'd not been expecting to do that at all. However, he felt she was safer there than in the same hospital where she'd been attacked twice just one week apart. For now, DiNozzo was standing guard. The last time he had seen the two together, they'd been in an argument over the validity of some old B movie. Gibbs had the sneaking suspicion Rebekah had never seen the movie, but enjoyed infuriating DiNozzo.

Shortly after sitting down at his desk and pulling his computer up from sleep mode, he heard the elevator door ding. Looking over at the person entering the bullpen, he was slightly surprised to see Dr. Mallard.

"Ducky, what can I do for you?" Gibbs asked, checking an email from Ziva to make sure he was right about which interrogation room housed Mr. Keys.

"It's what I can do for you, Jethro," Ducky said, regarding Gibbs with one of those looks that seemed to say he knew what was going on in Gibbs's head.

"All right, what can _you_ do for me?" Gibbs asked as he logged off of the computer, gathered the case folders from the desktop, gripped his coffee cup, and stood up.

"I would like the opportunity to study Mr. Keys while you question him. I got the feeling from Ziva that the young man is slightly deranged," Ducky said, nodding when Gibbs smirked.

"Slightly is an understatement Duck," Gibbs responded, "He thinks the government 'turns innocents into cyborgs'."

"Those were his words precisely?" Ducky asked as the two of them began walking toward the interrogation rooms.

As they were walking Gibbs nodded, "Uh huh."

"Did he say anything else that may be relevant?" Ducky inquired, noticing they were heading past the first of the interrogation rooms.

"That 'they' got to both Rebekah's and his parents," Gibbs informed him, stopping outside of the door into the observation room. Ducky would be able to see everything that went on through the two-way glass.

"I see," Ducky muttered as he entered. Gibbs stood outside the open door long enough to see Ducky stop before the two way glass, looking directly at Keys. There was little doubt in Gibbs's mind that Ducky was already psychoanalyzing the young man.

With a small inaudible chuckle, Gibbs closed the door and stepped over to the door into the interrogation room, armed as he was with the files containing the reports and images of the murders Keys was accused of, he felt secure that he would be able to break him. Crazy or not, even Keys had a breaking point. What happened after that point had been reached would be revealed when he managed to find it.

The interrogation lasted longer than Gibbs had thought it would. Keys proved to be just as disengaged from reality as he had seemed in the hospital earlier that day. His talk of government experiments on innocent people that turned them into some kind of mindless 'cyborgs' continued for hours. There were a number of times when Gibbs had been unable to fight the urge to throw an exasperated and disbelieving look into the mirror behind him. Dr. Mallard, no doubt, found it entertaining that all Gibbs could get out of the suspect was his spew about these topics. The more Gibbs listened, the more he became aware that there was no way Keys could have arranged or committed the murders of an entire family.

Once he had gotten his fill of the man's endless rhetoric, Gibbs stood from his chair and gathered everything he'd brought in with him. A photo, an eight by ten shot of Rebekah, fell out of one of the folders. The moment Keys saw it, he stopped speaking, his eyes going wide and tears starting to form at the corners.

"Becky…" the name was nearly inaudible.

Leaning down, his right hand settling on the edge of the photo, Gibbs spoke quietly to Keys, "What did you say?"

"Becky…" Keys looked up at him, his fisted hand rapping the lower corner of the picture with his knuckles. The tapping sound started out low but quickly rose to a crescendo that echoed around the room. Along with the tapping the man continued to say 'Becky' over and over again. The louder the tapping got, the louder he said the name.

"What about Becky?" Gibbs asked as he slammed his hand against the table top to garner the man's attention, when that did not work, he shouted the man's name, "Keys!"

Slowly, painfully so, the man's wide blue eyes turned upward, his face white as a sheet and his mouth partially open. It was clear, even without Ducky's diagnosis, that the man had gone beyond crazy into the world of insane. He was starting to wonder if he could even trust anything that came out of the man's mouth as truth.

"What is wrong with Becky?" Gibbs ground out, forcing himself to remain calm enough to finish the questioning. Keys knew more than he was saying. That much was clear. It was the matter of finding out what he knew that was proving trying.

"Becky is gonna die," Keys started as a bout of crazed laughter bubbled up from his throat, "Just like all the others, Becky's gonna die and I can't save her this time." The laughter was turning into frustrated tears as the madman started slamming his fists against the table again. The sentence was becoming a chant in the enclosed room and Gibbs found himself stepping away. He left the photo of Rebekah lying on the table before the young man.

Looking back before he stepped out the door, Gibbs watched as Matthew Keys collapsed under his own emotional weight and began to sob into the table. The door closed on the sounds and silence surrounded him. With a sigh, Gibbs turned as the door to the observation room opened and closed. Ducky stood there with an expression that belayed his concern for the young man on the other side of the glass.

"Jethro, that young man," Ducky started only to have Gibbs finish the sentence for him.

"Loves her, Duck, I know," Gibbs nodded before leading the way back toward the central section of the office.

"But that doesn't mean he didn't kill her family. If he perceived them as threats to her, he would be more than capable of killing them all," Ducky stated, "However, I don't believe he was capable of the sheer amount of planning it would take to execute her family the way they were."

"Execute, Duck?" Gibbs stopped walking, looking over at the Medical Examiner.

"Yes Jethro, execute. Though it was not in a way that is often seen in our society, I believe the Evans' were executed. Each of the family members were peppered by small caliber rounds. Each round was placed into the body in a way that ensured maximum pain without death until the very last round," Ducky explained, "It's in my report, but I am sure you've not had time to read it yet."

"No, I haven't Duck," Gibbs agreed, "If he didn't kill them, then that means…"

"There's still a killer out there seeking revenge on a family that no longer exists, save for one person," Ducky said in a tone that noted his feelings on the subject.

"And we have to find that killer," Gibbs added. He turned back around and began walking again, entering the space between the desks and looking at each of them in turn. All of them were still empty and he was starting to get impatient.

"Boss! Abby and I found a possible match to the blood we found on Lieutenant Commander Evans's uniform," McGee's voice announced from across the room. Standing directly behind him was Abby, looking pleased.

"Where?" Gibbs looked between the two of them.

"He's in Bethseda Naval Hospital," Abby answered, "With a gunshot wound, or rather, was, in Bethseda with a gunshot wound."

"He was released today at around three," McGee finished as he handed Gibbs a folder, "The bullet matched the gun found on Matthew Keys."

"Son of a…" Gibbs slammed the folder shut after seeing the face of the agent from earlier in the day. Glancing at his watch, he noticed it was nearly five in the evening. That was more than ample time to reach D.C. from Bethseda, even with heavy traffic.

"Call DiNozzo," Gibbs started to order.

McGee interrupted him, "And let him know, already did boss. I also warned Ziva and put out a BOLO on him."

"Is there any way to find out where he is now?" Gibbs asked, not wanting to wait for the man to strike to find him.

"Well, if I had his cell number," McGee stated, though he stopped when Gibbs shook his head in the negative, "Or if I had any information on him, such as, what type of car he drives – if it has a GPS system we could track it."

"Check his personnel file. His name was Gary Nelson," Gibbs ordered as he turned to Abby, "Good work Abs."

"Thank you Gibbs," Abby smirked as she accepted the kiss on the cheek before turning and heading for her lab downstairs.

"It was six thousand pounds and twenty-five feet long," Rebekah growled, leaning back as she regarded DiNozzo from her place on the couch. Her right foot was propped up on Gibbs's coffee table between them.

"There's no way that was all Jaws weighed," DiNozzo responded teasingly.

"My mother loved that movie, DiNozzo, I should know," Rebekah snapped, getting annoyed.

As DiNozzo opened his mouth to respond, a crashing sound alerted them to something going on outside. Standing, DiNozzo held up his hand to still Rebekah. He stood where he was for a few seconds, listening with a look on his face that screamed "blood hound" to Rebekah and she had a hard time stifling the laughter. Whether she truly found the image funny or it was a hysterical reaction to everything that had happened that day, she did not know.

With a movement of his hand and a fierce look on his face, DiNozzo told her to stay put and stay quiet. Nodding quickly, Rebekah leaned back and waited for him to leave. As soon as he was beyond the doorway into the kitchen she was on her feet, her crutch beneath her right arm. There was no way she was going to sit still and wait for whatever maniac was after her now.

Looking around the living room, her eyes focusing and unfocusing as they passed over shadowed corners, Rebekah sought out a weapon she could use in case she needed to defend herself. As proven by the agents at the hospital, NCIS agents were far from infallible. After all, Matthew Keys wasn't exactly a top criminal mastermind and he'd managed to get past both of the agents Gibbs had scheduled to watch over her this morning. As her eyes passed the fireplace, a warm fire crackling in the hearth, she caught the glimmer of wrought iron. The tools hung on hooks that were positioned on a pedestal beside the fireplace. However, it was too far to get to without making a racket with her crutch and braced knee. Continuing her search, she spied a metal bin in the entryway. Peeking out of the top of the bin was the grip of a baseball bat. It sat amidst a few umbrellas. That would serve her purpose and hopefully it would not be needed at all.

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